Harvard

The Harvard President’s New Scandal: Now The Only Way Gay Can Prove She’s Fit To Lead The University Is To Leave It [Expanded & Updated]

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

City-Journal, arguably the best of the conservative websites, has extensive coverage of the plagiarism allegations against Claudine Gay, whose presidency of Harvard was already on shaky ground following her awful testimony before Congress regarding the burgeoning anti-Semitism on campus. It is too detailed for me to summarize correctly, and if I cut and paste sufficient amounts of the piece I’ll be plagiarizing, so you should read all about it here. (You may have to register, but access is free.)

Disgustingly, the New York Times and the Washington Post have not reported this yet. That’s outrageous, and one more screaming example of how the Left circles its wagons any time an ally seriously screws up. Harvard is to progressive indoctrination in education what the Times is to progressive propaganda in journalism, but the last thing the mainstream media needs now is another Hunter Biden laptop fiasco. Harvard is very much in the news already for it’s ugly role in the Hamas-Israel Ethics Train Wreck; Gay is now a central figure, and for the plagiarism development to be given the “nothing to see here” treatment by the news media is spectacularly foolish as well as unethical. [Update: This afternoon, after Harvard mentioned the plagiarism issue, both the Times and the Post finally reported on it its digital editions.]

But I digress…I had initially assumed that the accusations that Gay had violated Harvard’s own policies on citations, credit to other scholars and plagiarism were like past attacks on controversial authors like Ann Coulter, technical but non substantive, the sort that could be dug up on many published public figures by those seeking to damage their reputations. I was mistaken, however. Gay’s violations are substantive and substantial. Moreover, Gay appears to have appropriated material from one of the most significant scholars in the field of racial issues in American, now retired Vanderbilt professor and author Carol Swain.

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Res Ipsa Loquitur: Much Appreciation To Rep.Stefanik For Validating My Estrangement From Harvard

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

One comment only: It is astounding and damning that a woman with the erudition of Harvard’s president could do not better than repeatedly resorting to pre-memorized, non-responsive, probably lawyer-crafted boilerplate in response to Stefanik’s questions.

It immediately remind me of former slimeball Congressman Gary Condit (well, he’s still probably a slimeball) in the infamous 2001 ABC interview about intern Chandra Levy, then missing. Condit was romantically linked to his intern, and considered a suspect in what was eventually found to be Levy’s murder. Every time Connie Chung asked directly about their relationship, Condit repeated the mantra, “Well, once again, “I’ve been married 34 years. I have not been a perfect man. I have made mistakes in my life. But out of respect for my family, out of a specific request by the Levy family, it is best that I not get into the details of the relationship.”

This, naturally, made him look guilty. As it turned out, he wasn’t.

But President Gay is guilty of hypocrisy and cowardice.

Schadenfreude Bonus: Watching Harvard Face The Consequences Of Its Own Hypocrisy and Corrupted Values

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

New Harvard President Claudine Gay can be expected to issue a fourth clarification of her initial reactions to the University’s large anti-Semitic contingent cheering on the Hamas massacre of Jewish citizens on October 7. To read Gay’s inaugural speech upon becoming the new president of America’s oldest and most storied educational institution, one would think “all is well” at Harvard, as Faber College student Kevin Bacon futilely screamed in the epic finale of “Animal House.” In marvelous ramalama-dingdong fashion, the standard issue race-obsessed progressive scholar babbled, predictably as Harvard’s first black President, about “this institution’s long history of exclusion and the long journey of resistance and resilience to overcome it.” Then she proved incapable of reacting forcibly when Harvard’s long history of anti-Semitism suddenly revealed itself not to have been resisted enough. Indeed, Harvard’s relentless efforts at woke indoctrination guarantee that it will flourish.

As discussed here, 31 Harvard campus organizations famously announced that Israel was fully responsible for all the violence erupting in and out of Gaza. Then, after efforts were made to reveal the names of the participating pro-terrorism and historically ignorant students so potential employers could cross them off their lists, we learned how well Harvard imbues its students with the ethical virtues of integrity, accountability, honesty, loyalty and prudence, along with such enabling virtues as fortitude, courage, and sacrifice. At least ten of the groups announced that they no longer endorsed the letter, now that there might be consequences attached to signing it. Some student members swore that they never approved the letter that their groups signed; others proclaimed that they didn’t really mean to say what the letters said, or that they hadn’t read it carefully.

Got it: you’re incompetent, irresponsible and cowardly fools. These reactions do not enhance your attraction as potential employees.

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What Does It Say About The State Of Higher Education In The U.S. That Its Oldest And Most Prestigious Institution Is The Nation’s Most Hostile To Free Speech?

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

It’s a rhetorical question. What this says is that the culture of the United States of America, which has been nurtured for centuries to embrace personal liberty and pluralism, is being threatened by its elite educational institutions and the indoctrinated citizens they graduate.

I suppose I should take some satisfaction that I began blowing the metaphorical whistle on my alma mater years ago, and felt sufficiently embarrassed by the ethics rot overwhelming the ivy there to turn my diploma face to the wall and to explain in my class notes that I would be boycotting the class reunion. Simply put, the American college long considered the exemplar for higher education cannot become fascistically woke without dire consequences to the nation. Harvard alumni, many, maybe even most, of whom recognize this, have been negligent in allowing matter to reach this point. But that point has been reached.

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I’m Sick Of Hearing These Arguments That College Admissions Favor The Wealthy And Privileged Because The Problem Is Easy To Fix. So Fix It.

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Nicholas Kristoff, a another New York Times progressive pundit but one who occasionally makes sense, has an intermittently valid op-ed in today’s paper titled, “The Real College Admissions Scandal,” which is, he argues, “affirmative action for the rich and privileged.”

Kristoff immediately knee-caps his own credibility by writing, perhaps to please his Dark Woke Masters, “I wish the Supreme Court had ruled differently on affirmative action for race, but unfortunately it blocked that path for diversity.” It’s a stupid statement. The Constitution blocked that path, and so did the 1964 Civil Rights Act. What his statement literally means is that he applauds “good racial discrimination and prejudice”, but deplores it when it adversely affects groups he cares about.

He also comes close to setting off the hypocrisy alarm, but at least is transparent. While including “legacy admissions” in his list of “affirmative action for the rich and privileged,” Kristoff says, “I was a member of the Harvard Board of Overseers, and my wife, Sheryl WuDunn, is currently a member and previously served on the Princeton and Cornell boards; our three children also attended Harvard.” Hmmm. So, having benefited from the policies he condemns while doing nothing to reform them, the pundit now want to stop others from benefiting from them! Cool. He also is silent about how much money he has given to his alma mater over the years. Donors also get an edge for their kids when they apply to prestige colleges.

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Joy Reid, Harvard, Althouse, And Affirmative Action

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Straining to engage in her trademark “cruel neutrality,” esteemed blogger Ann Althouse stepped up to defend MSNBC’s Joy Reid and stepped in it, as the idiom goes, in the process. Ann defended Reid, claiming that she never said or implied that she was admitted to Harvard because of affirmative action.

“I think Ramaswamy is distorting (or, less likely, not hearing and understanding),” Ann wrote in part. “…She says she got high grades and test scores in high school, but she wouldn’t have thought to try for Harvard if Harvard hadn’t come out to her small, majority-black town and recruited. She was strongly encouraged to apply. The Supreme Court hasn’t changed the power of schools to recruit in places like hers. Reid never says her scores and grades wouldn’t have been enough if she were not black.”

Uncharacteristically, Althouse didn’t do her homework. In the MSNBC segment, Reid was basically regurgitating her blog post saying the same things, and that was headlined, “I got into Harvard because of affirmative action. Some of my classmates got in for their wealth.”

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Ethics Quote Of The Month: John W. Jenkins

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

“The University defends the truth,” says the Harvard logo. ‘The emblem shows respect for science, using only verified facts within the University’s walls and a willingness to defend the truth.’ Yet as it relates to climate change, the University has set aside obvious truths and brought together its five professional schools supporting the new “Save the Planet” religious dogma of the past decade.”

—Harvard M.B.A John W. Jenkins, in a letter to the alumni magazine protesting the University’s complicity in promoting “imprudent policies perpetuated on our populations by Green environmental activists whose view of history is only 20 years deep.”

Jenkins, whom I have thus far not succeeded in contacting, has authored one of the clearest and most persuasive debunking of current climatic change cant, and perfectly chastised our mutual alma mater, Harvard, for its cowardly and irresponsible alliance with an unethical and destructive movement. The author appears to be in his late eighties, and more skilled in communication than graduates half, indeed a quarter his age.

Harvard Magazine published his letter, but I am trying hard to believe it was a coincidence that its second half was difficult to locate due to a pagination error. I hope Mr. Jenkins does not mind Ethics Alarms re-publishing his entire statement. It deserves to be seen by as many people as possible. The whole thing is an Ethics Quote of the Month. Here it is:

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Me: “Berkeley Law School Hiring Chesa Boudin Is Unethical!” Harvard: “Hold My Beer…”

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

I’m not sure Harvard’s hiring of failed Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot is quite as outrageous and incompetent as Berkeley hiring the pro-criminal ex-DA who helped turn San Francisco into a close approximation of Frank Miller’s “Sin City,” but it’s close enough to make me sick to my stomach.

Lightfoot will teach a course at Harvard later this year on “Health Policy and Leadership,” she announced yesterday, saying, “I learned a lot over the past four years, and this gives me an opportunity to share my experiences and perceptions of governing through one of the most challenging chapters in American history.”

This is an interesting concept: hire teachers to teach what they proved to have no skill at or comprehension of when they had actual responsibility in that area. This is like hiring Mario Mendoza (lifetime batting average: .215) as a hitting coach. It gives Alissa Heinerscheid, the vice president of marketing for Bud Light responsible for the Dylan Mulvaney debacle, hope for a new career in academia.

Lightfoot demonstrated as Mayor of Chicago that she knew virtually nothing about leadership, policymaking or public health management, and now she’s teaching it. Perfect. Here’s how her hometown paper sympathetically describes her qualifications:

Early in the pandemic, when Black Chicagoans were dying at six times the rate of whites, Lightfoot and her team led by Dr. Allison Arwady …provided door-to-door outreach with masks and information in vulnerable communities and, when vaccines became available, prioritized them for South and West side residents. But Lightfoot also was slow to take action when the pandemic spurred Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker to close schools and businesses across the state, following along only reluctantly. She later clashed with the governor over bar and restaurant rules and battled the Chicago Teachers Union in a push to return to in-person learning, even as she faced blowback over keeping the lakefront closed too long…. Lightfoot also walked away from her campaign promise to reopen public mental health clinics closed by predecessor Rahm Emanuel. Lightfoot argued the city could better serve residents by giving money to vendors…

I wonder if Prof. Lightfoot will teach her students to accuse critics of sexism and racism when their policies crash and burn?

On the same pedagogical theory, she should team teach the course with ex-New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who can explain what he learned by killing thousands of elderly nursing home residents by stashing pandemic victims in their midst.

Oh, all right, Berkeley hiring Boudin to head a new criminal justice center is more unethical than Harvard letting Lightfoot pollute student minds with her concept of leadership…after all, it’s just a single course, and the smart students can just skip it.

Thoughts While Reading Classmate Entries In My Alma Mater’s Anniversary Report, #4: Imagine…If John Lennon Had Graduated From Harvard

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

If John Lennon had graduated from Harvard (and not been assassinated, of course) he might have written the ridiculous insufferable screed I just read in my anniversary report. I knew the author as a freshman, and did not enjoy the experience: the fact that he appears to be just as big a jerk today as he was when he was 18 confirms my long-held conclusion that maturity is a myth and most people don’t change as much as we would like to think.

Of course this guy is obsessed with climate change. He is downcast about the “prospects for the future of human civilization,” seeing “pending catastrophe” due to our “abuse of Mother Nature,” and there’s “very little time” to turn things around. No, Al Gore was not in my class.

Millions are going to die, “water wars” will rage, nuclear wars are inevitable, and hoards of climate-displaced refugees in the millions will roam the earth. Everyone must reduce their carbon footprint to zero–ZERO!—immediately, “not next year, not in five years, but now” or we are doomed. That means, this expert says (I can’t figure out what his real area of expertise is, but I don’t care, either), going cold turkey on fossil fuels and buying electric cars or, presumably, using bicycles and roller skates. Airplanes are right out, I guess.

He goes on to lecture on the need to abandon “tribalism,” self-interest, nations, success (“tribal dominance”) basic human aspirations and ambitions, all of it, because it is these maladies that have brought us to this perilous state. I’ll give him credit for one thing: at least he realizes that the kind of ascetic existence that he demands of humanity can’t possibly occur under the current governmental and societal structures, though he never has the guts to come right out and say what he’s advocating: world dictatorship by some body or individual who is wise and beneficent. For that would be the only way his formula for survival could ever be carried out, and that formula is exactly as absurd as Lennon’s lyrics in “Imagine.” It can’t happen, won’t happen, and most important of all, shouldn’t happen. Two and a half pages and 2,000 words of environmental, utopian virtue-signaling, all culminating in an urgent, indeed hysterical exhortation to not only do the impossible and impractical, but also do it without any reasonable assurance that such radical measures will work.

Good plan!

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Thoughts While Reading Classmate Entries In My Alma Mater’s Anniversary Report, #3

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

I have just a few general observations this time.

  • I know I have mentioned this before, but I can’t get past it: it is remarkable to me, but maybe it shouldn’t be, how many of my classmates regard climate change as their greatest concern for the future.These are (mostly) smart, analytical people, yet climate change conventional wisdom has been successfully implanted in their brains by relentless media hammering and by cognitive dissonance (that is, what the “good” people believe must be good and true) so deeply that they are incapable of perceiving obvious logical fallacies. The people society trusts to devise substantive and practical solutions to our problems are stuck in the “Do something!” mode. Scary.
  • Trump Derangement rages.
  • So does wilful historical revisionism. One Democrat wrote that his wife was an “Eisenhower Republican” but had abandoned the current Republican Party because it had become too radically conservative. Eisenhower Republicans would make today’s GOP seem like the Antifa. Kennedy Democrats were more conservative than today’s Republican Party.
  • By far my favorite ethical weirdness, though, is the widespread obsession with exaggerating the significance of the January 6 Capitol rioting while referring to it as both an “insurrection” and a bleak portent of the decline of democracy. This opinion is coming from the class that overwhelmingly supported the student take-over of the Harvard administration building and cheered the students who battled riot police who tried to clear out the mob! That invasion of Harvard offices was just a microcosm of the Capitol riot, a foolish and doomed tantrum, except that the students were angry that their school was supporting a war over which they had no authority or control, while the Capitol rioters were protesting what they believed was a perversion of a Presidential election that had rendered their votes and rights effectively null and void. While the students were never held accountable for their civil disobedience, the Capitol rioters have been severely punished. After decades that should have made them wiser, the former students who never held any fantasies that their brief take-over of university offices would allow them to overthrow the Harvard administration now solemnly claim that a few hundred jacked-up idiots with bear spray and sticks thought they could take over the United States government.